Dudalstind/ Nonstind and GNARbars

Had a quality outing yesterday in Gratangen with Bjarte, Einar and Jan Eirik. We linked up Dudalstind and Nonstind, found some quality snow as well as some ice and boiler plate, and ended up skiing a new line which I've been eyeing for years. Here's a few photos from the day and at the bottom of the post is a recipe for the energy bars which have been powering me on all my days this winter. 

Core members of the Narvik Toothpick Mafia topping out on Dudalstind

Bjarte skiing from the summit with Jan Eirik supervising.

Bjarte enjoying some cold snow on a warm day. Photo: Jan Eirik

Me on the first turn from the summit. Photo Jan Eirik

Photo: Jan Eirik

Gang ski

Skinning up from Botnsletta enroute to Nonstind, Dudalstind in the background.

The ridge on Nonstind is as scenic as it is simple.

Einar sprinted ahead so he could make a detour and sit on the false summit whilst he ate a sandwich.

A short bootpack up the summit pitch on Nonstind. Photo Jan Eirik

Bjarte about to top out.

Bjarte about to drop in. Photo Jan Eirik

Einar on his first turn from the summit of Nonstind.

We skied the SE face of Nonstind (the one which is clearly visible from the E6), it is super convex and you can't really see what you're skiing until you are in the crux of it. The key is to not ski too far left (it cliffs out), but if you stick to one of the central gully features it doesn't get any steeper than about 45 degrees (not measured).

GNARbars:

I've been getting a lot of requests for the recipe recently and thought I might as well share it here.

Getting quality energy bars in Norway is difficult and really expensive. I've been working on a simple recipe for years, modifying the ingredients and tweaking the way I make it. For years I was doing bars which required baking, but these always fell apart and crumbled after a few hours in a backpack, or were difficult to eat on the go. Inspired by these and this type of thing I'm now settled on a basic recipe which is a) easy and quick to make; b) nutritious; c) long lasting and durable enough that it doesn't get smashed up after hours in a backpack; d) edible regardless of the temperature (even when semi-frozen on mid winter tours); e) tasty!

They are easily modified according to taste and preference. Obviously they contain quite a bit of sugar from the dates, but they're energy bars- that's the point! If you want some more complex carbs add more oats, if you want more proteins and fats for fuelling longer days add more nuts, my favourite combination is the one listed below. But another popular recipe is substituting the cocoa, chocolate and chilli for dried apple, raisins and cinnamon ("apple-pie") or dried banana. You can even add ground coffee for a caffeine kick (but be warned of the laxative effect of eating a bunch of ground coffee whilst moving around in the mountains). Ginger works really good in them too. And desiccated coconut is a nice addition also.

GNARbar ChChCh (ie. chocolate/chia/chilli)

300g pitted dates

80g almonds (or other nuts, but peanuts don't work so well in my opinion)

50g chia seeds

50g oats

5g sea salt

(additional extras):

30g cocoa

80g dark chocolate (crushed into small pieces)

5g chilli

• Throw the nuts and oats in a food processor and blend until they're coarsely chopped. It's okay if the mix is slightly chunky- it makes for a bit more texture.
• Add all the other ingredients to the food processor and mix for a minute or two until everything is mixed well and the dates are totally puréed.
• Scoop everything into a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to press the mixture into a rectangle about 2cm thick and 20cmx20cm long. Put it in the freezer overnight to set.
• The next day slice it into bar size pieces and wrap in cellophane.

NarvikRando- a track setters perspective #2

The second NarvikRando skimo race went down this past weekend, and was a vast improvement on last years event. Participant numbers were down a little from 55 last year (combined "competition" and "non-competitive" classes) to 39 this year. However the course was much better, the weather was A+ and everyone I spoke with after the race seems pretty stoked.

With the lessons learnt from last year's race, my role as "løypesjef" (ie. track-setter) was both a bigger job but also much more organised. We bought 500 new marking flags, and borrowed another 700 from Skittentind, meaning we had 4x more than last year, aside from a bunch of yellow bootpack flags, we pretty much used them all!

The snow conditions were challenging, with close to two weeks since the last snowfall, and a few days of gale force winds followed by mild temps and then a complete refreeze the surface conditions were icy in some places and windpacked in others. Mild temps early in the week allowed us to set some of the skintracks on the lower mountain. Things stayed firm on the upper mountain though and we ended up having to actually level the skintrack with shovels on some key sections of the course.

I ended up clocking 9000+ metres in the days leading up to the race, marking the course and setting the track. It was really fun and satisfying seeing it take shape from day to day, but also kind of tiring. I had hopes of taking place, but on the morning of the race while out on one last reconnaissance, I realised that I was more interested in being proud of a decent course than I was in competing myself.

A big shout out to Micke, Andreas, Trond, Jan Eirik, Marte, Trond, Einar and Jon for help with setting the track and course markers as well as all the other work behind the event!

The result list is here: https://www.webscorer.com/narvik_rando

And here are some articles in norwegian published about the race:

Fri Flyt- Spekest i Narvik

I Narvik- Vant Narvik Rando

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Micke

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Micke

Photo: Micke

The course for the competition class

Course profile for the competition class

Skånland and Lavangen

I've been pretty lax with updating the blog over this winter, it's not for a lack of skiing and time spent in the mountains and not having any material. If anything the opposite is true, I've been more focussed on spending time in the mountains than posting photos. Anyway, here are a few photos from the past two weeks.

Firstly a weekend spent skiing around Skånland, with descents from Skorvetind, Niingen, Skittendalstind, Litletind and Stortind and two nights at Blåvatnshytta.

Jenny enroute to Skorvetind, the line we ended up skiing is a couloir which breaks up the cliff band pictured.

Summit pose. Photo by Jenny

alternate summit pose. Photo by Jenny

Jenny demonstrating more summit pose, we weren't in much of a rush.

Skiing some breakable crust in a new line which we called "Skorperenna". Photo by Jenny

Jenny in Skorperenna.

B/W Skorperenna. Photo by Jenny

Skiing down to the fjord from Skorvetind.

We skinned in to Blåvatnshytta in the dark from Bogen, over Niingsvatnet. It took about 3 hours. I don't recommend this route, atleast not travelling it for the first time in the dark while it's snowing. The route crosses a regulated dam and the cracks in the ice were kind of terrifying. The whole time I was on the lake I was imagining a scenario where I broke through the ice and the water level was 50cm below the actual ice, which would make it really tricky to climb out.

Our day based at Blåvatnshytta was defined by whiteout conditions. We had a lazy morning drinking coffee. Skiied Niingen in what we, mistakenly, thought was a break in the weather. Had lunch in the cabin, then skiied Skittendalstind in a true whiteout (aside from the upper 100 metres when we broke above the clouds). Then we tested out the sauna. The sauna got an A+ grade.

This icefall provided just about our only reference point on the descent from Skittendalstind.

The next day dawned bluebird and we had some nice skiing on Litletind and Stortind (with a descent direct to Bogen) before driving back to Narvik for work.

Blåvatnshytta, another great DNT cabin to use as a base for ski touring. Photo by Jenny

Skinning some windboard enroute to Stortind. Photo by Jenny

Jenny about to ski into the fjord on the descent from Stortind.

Secondly, some photos from a day trip in Lavangen. We parked the car at Årstein and skied Lavangstind, Tverfjellet and Årsteinshorn. Terrific snow, sun, calm wind conditions, interesting ski terrain and good company- a pretty decent day all things considered.

A scenic skintrack up from Årstein. Photo by Jenny

Practicing for the "Powder-8". Photo by Jenny

Jenny Skiing Tverfjellet.

Jenny skiing fro Årsteinshorn.

The last ski run of the day, from Årsteinshorn. Photo by Jenny

R2R2R

Five days after the bailing 64ish km into the Trans Zion I ran the R2R2R in the Grand Canyon. 

Going in to the run I knew I'd have to be a little more focussed in terms of hyrdrating properly, to avoid a repeat of the debacle in Zion. But with the water sources spaced so conveniently on the main corridor trails in the canyon I knew this shouldn't be a problem.

I camped just outside the park and downed some coffee and a clifbar on the drive in. Starting out at 5:30am was cold and dark, but far from solitary: within the first 30 minutes I'd passed a total of something like 30 people, nearly all of them hiking in big gangs. Once the sun rose, the views were incredible and stayed that way for the entire day. Every single metre of the route was amazing, from the sweeping views close to the rim, to the choked sections down near the river. It was incredible and lived up to all expectations.

Its been nearly four weeks since the outing and I figure its better to simply publish these photos now than wait until I have time to write up a proper report on the day. A few quick facts: I started on the North Rim and ran up the South Kaibab Trail, which I reached in 4:20 before turning around and returning the same way. My roundtrip time was 10:00. 

I drank a total of 12 litres of water! (I didn't think this would be possible, but I didn't have any stomach sloshing or discomfort- this felt like about the right amount of water for me given the heat. Interesting to note that this was about 3x more than I drank on the TransZion attempt).